Category: Health

What is the Paddle for Clean Water?

Originally launched in the 90s as a protest against sewage pollution, the Paddle for Clean Water has grown into an annual event uniting surfers, swimmers, and ocean enthusiasts in a powerful show of solidarity for protecting our coastline and improving ocean water quality.

Local TV station CBS8 sent a couple of reporters out to Convoy Street in Kearny Mesa to check on the new bike lanes the city just installed a couple of weeks ago.

What the station found was not pretty. The crew was there for 2 hours and witnessed a total of 5 bike riders in the bike lanes, including one on an ebike and another who jumped onto a sidewalk to ride.

They also found that the plastic barriers used were ineffectual – several already damaged — and that because the barriers prevented street sweepers able to clean the gutters, the bike lanes had trash, rubble and shopping carts clogging them.

A lot of OBceans know Matt Beatty. He was the librarian at the OB Library for years. Now Matt is in the news.

Matt is a resident of Mission Beach and goes for daily swims in the ocean off his home beach. But on Friday, September 20, he was attacked by a sea lion while swimming — and injured and had to be taken to a hospital for his wounds.

And he wasn’t the only person attacked by a sea lion. Jessica Linares was snorkeling with a friend earlier in the day, around noon on that same Friday when she too was attacked and had to go to the hospital.

Matt, 61, told ABC10News that he was halfway done with his daily ocean swim near the lifeguard station Friday night at Mision Beach when he felt more than just a tug on his leg.

By Shelby Huffaker, MPH – Chair, San Diego Americans for Safe Access / August 2024 Newsletter

On Tuesday, August 29, 2024, the County Board of Supervisors listened to a presentation from the San Diego County Grand Jury on a report it released earlier this summer: Cannabis In San Diego – How Is It Going? The report outlines the “financial, health, and law enforcement impacts of cannabis legalization and recommends actions that should be taken to better inform the public about these impacts in San Diego.” The recommended actions include the following:

Charles Langley, the Executive Director of Public Watchdogs is warning the public that once again, Southern California Edison is in radioactively “hot” water about another radiation leak involving the failed San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS). Langley is urging the public to learn about this shocking development this Thursday afternoon, Sept. 5th at an Edison-sponsored virtual meeting from 2pm to 5pm, September 5 (meeting details here).

Langley writes:

About the radiation leak:

The leak occurred during the transport of a 100-ton, thirty-seven foot high, “pressurizer.” Edison has claimed that the leak is below “background” radiation. A railroad worker in San Bernardino discovered the leak on or around June 30, during the pressurizer’s long journey from San Onofre to a disposal site in Clive Utah.

By Shelby Huffaker / San Diego Americans for Safe Access Newsletter / September 2024

On August 20, 2024, the Carlsbad City Council voted to adopt Ordinance No. CS-475 – 4/1 (Burkholder – No), prohibiting the smoking or vaping of cannabis and tobacco products in multi-unit residences. While the reasons underlying the creation of this ordinance may be well-intended, we at the San Diego Chapter of Americans for Safe Access believe that a prohibition on the smoking or vaping of cannabis and cannabis products in multiunit residences will result in numerous unintended consequences to patients, consumers, and the public at large. The reasons for this are outlined in detail

By Elsie Hammond / The Coronado Times / Sept. 1, 2024

A peaceful protest of the Tijuana sewage crisis was held at the Imperial Beach Pier on Friday evening, August 30. Toni Trinidad, a Coronado teacher, Emerald Keepers liaison, and long-time Imperial Beach resident, planned and spoke at the grassroots event. She represented residents in attendance from Imperial Beach and Coronado who are tired of having to deal with toxic waste in the ocean and on their beaches.

By Paul Krueger / Sentinel News / September 1, 2024

The fact that I can write this story is something of a medical miracle.

On July 30, I was rushed to Scripps Mercy Hospital’s Trauma Unit, disoriented, unable to speak coherently, and afraid I might never talk again.

Within12 hours, I could clearly communicate with my wife and the medical professionals who restored my brain functioning — and possibly saved my life — thanks to an amazing drug that can reverse brain injury and prevent permanent disability.

By Geoff Page

On Monday, August 19, Channel 5 Fox News did a story on, well, signs. A person might wonder why a news station would do a story about signs. Fox was not motivated by a tip about a fascinating, untold sign story. Fox was showing how this city’s administration works by doing the city’s bidding.

The story was about new signs the city posted on the pier. A little background first.

The Rag carried a piece on these signs July 31.

In that story, this writer related telling the lifeguards about the missing sign on the pier, warning surfers to stay 75 feet away from the pier, that had been there for decades. Not trusting the lackluster reaction from the local lifeguards, the following email was sent a week later, on August 8, to the lifeguard management.

By Geoff Page

There is a scene in the movie, “Blazing Saddles,” a Mel Brooks classic, (see above) where a preacher tries to stop the crowd from shooting the new – Black – sheriff. The preacher holds the Bible up and someone shoots it, whereupon he says, “Son, yer on yer own” and walks away. Seems this is the City of San Diego’s slogan.

This is what the city says. It is from an email city mayoral representative Randy Reyes sent to a long list of people:

Thank you for your email. I wanted to address your comments about the City’s decisions as it relates to the current status of the OB Pier. Public life and safety is and will remain the top priority. …

“Public life and safety is and will remain the top priority.” This is what the city actually does.

Brand new drone footage confirms that a section of the bluff at Garbage Beach off Sunset Cliffs could collapse imminently. The new drone work is by Charles Landon.

Last week, the Rag identified the dangerous section and notified the city via lifeguards who came to the site at the Rag’s invite.

Yet, over the week, the city has not done a single thing to notify or alert beachgoers about the dangerous bluff above them. You can see by the accompanying still shot that beach goers sit just below the bluff in question (see photo -taken Monday, June 24, 2024).

Rag reporter Geoff Page met with several lifeguards from the OB tower at the parking lot at Sunset Cliffs Natural Park.

He took them to the site of  the dangerous bluff crack — and told me by phone that it looked worse from on top the bluff. The main guard agreed with him that it looked very dangerous.